Essays in International Macroeconomics

Abstract

This thesis includes three essays. The first chapter analyzes how the implications of productivity shocks in an open economy can differ depending on the size of the economy relative to the rest of the world. It employs a stylized two-country general equilibrium model with love of variety, where economies differ in size and shows that a dynamic home market effect is present: productivity shocks that lower production and entry costs lead to deterioration of home terms of trade when home is small relative to the rest of the word but to improvement of terms of trade when home is large. The second chapter analyzes the role of globalization in the lack of convergence of living standards within Europe, despite integration processes. Building on theoretical and empirical literature on trade and income inequality in the U.S. this chapter proposes a model that describes how globalization affects disparities between countries in Europe. To quantitatively assess this effect, a measure of exposure to globalization is constructed, using detailed trade, employment, and output data. The chapter shows that the relative performance of countries within Europe is correlated with their exposure to globalization. In particular, countries that experienced relative declines of living standards over the past decade have been most exposed to globalization. The third chapter explores the implications of demand side pricing complementarities and endogenous markups in open economy. It shows that endogenous markups resulting from translog preferences imply richer dynamics for international relative prices that have better chances to match the data. Further, countercyclical markups lead to endogenous procyclical movement as well as cross-country correlation of measured TPF. It also shows that in a stylized model endogenous markups may act as a transmission mechanism, leading in particular to positive GDP co-movement across borders as opposed to a benchmark CES model.